Well then. Toss all those superficial extracurriculars aside. Actually some type of volunteer work could actually be valuable, but you don't have to spend time in some clinic in a jungle of a 3rd world country if you really don't care about whatever 3rd world country. Having interviewed med school applicants for my school, I can say it is pretty obvious most only did research or certain volunteer work to "impress" schools and as far as I can tell the faculty interviewers can see right through all that. kladjhglakj enough about that.
If you're taking time off to actually work, then great. A certification program would probably be best. The benefit of the degree programs is that they give a medic a general educational foundation that certification programs do not do, or do poorly. You have that educational foundation and then some. A degree worth going for maybe something like a masters in disaster planning/preparedness or EMS management (a lot of these can be done over the internet). Aside from advancing the profession as a whole, I see degrees being important in EMS if you want to gain supervisory or administrative positions (in my area many of such positions require at least an AAS, but a masters in something relevant to the field is often preferred).
